Production of Space - Product vs Work

I think a "product" is a "work" which has been replicated. What Henri Lefebvre is saying is that a product is what comes from labour. It is something that can be manufactured again and again without any new information, without any originality or any individual gain. A work is a result of creation. It is a unique result of a process where the creator(s) give something to the item, construct a uniqueness or add something "more". A product is an object lacking in warmth and character. A work carries the beauty of its design, craft and creation. However we should remember that all "products", I think it’s fair to say, start with a "work". There is no iPod without the original prototype or even an original idea, in that case, can all works not be produced? In a way many "works" are seen as the end result of a creative process, of a journey for the creator. Michelangelo, for example, is the only one who could create the Pieta - yes there can be replicas made but they are only illusions/illustrations of the original. They are soulless. They are not the same as the original, as they are not a result of the original creative process. The progression and development of the idea are not the same.

Today we surround ourselves with products. We clam our individuality through clothes, technology and often ideas that are simply mass-produced products – Converse, iPod, Bush bad, Obama good. How does this work with the concept of exchange value vs use value? It can be presumed that we spend more on a product that gives us more use value – NO WE DON’T. An iPod has high use value, low exchange value. The Pieta has low use value, high exchange value. We pay for creativity, for uniqueness yet demand products. So the question is which could we live without - in reality; neither.

What I’m trying to get at, is that as human beings we need both products and works. Works provide tech. advances, it provides art, music, a passion for life and products take these studies/passions and spread them throughout the world, undoubtedly creating a call for further investment in tech/mechanical research etc.

After Theory

An easy read – NO!! Maybe I am just falling into Terry Eagleton’s ideas of what our culture has become. I was interested about “the politics of masturbation” and “subjects like vampirism and eye-gouging, cyborgs and porno movies” yet when he goes on to talk about “post-colonialism” and “Western‘identity politics’” he just loses me. His language which can be interesting and to the point, gives way to long, incomprehensible lectures; all of which I am barely able to understand, unless I have a dictionary by my side. Why it is necessary to write a paragraph when a sentence can quickly and easily say what needs to be said?

He does make some interesting comparatives between the past “cultural theories” and ours of today. Undoubtedly the utter misery I felt in reading his latter pages would have left me as one of the “common people” who the traditional scholars would have “ignored”, if I had been around in “the golden age of cultural theory”, where only truly important issues were studied. Sex was not discussed because as Eagleton explains “human beings had no genitals”.

This begs the question, has our fascination with everyday life, sex, tattoo, drinking or what this person had for dinner, been forced into our cultural thinking because of technological advances? Or has technology been developed because of our need to study the everyday? I refuse to join Twitter and hate that I have a Facebook account because, quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about what quirky thought has popped into your head or if you find something is “lols”. Are we, in this culture of sharing everything with thousands of people, eventually going to burn out? How many times can we discuss nail polish, a school shooting in America, Bieber’s pants or the tragedy of Breaking Bad finishing, before we beg for silence?

As Eagleton says “to live in interesting times is not, to be sure, an unmixed blessing…….. what has proved most damaging, at least before the emergence of the anti-capitalist movement, is the absence of memories of collective, and effective, political action”. When having a heated debate with a friend over a few drinks a month ago, he expressed the pride he had when “back in his time” students would protest, riot and actively stand up for what they believed in. He then carried on to say how as a generation we have no interest in government policies, third world crises or the destruction of the O-zone - I disagreed and called him an “old fart”.

I think we do stand up for what we believe in, the only problem is that we have become slightly numbed to them because of the sheer volume of information we get bombarded with. Every day we hear or read about some new catastrophe, and it’s too much to keep up with. In-between the news reports, we also have to read blogs, essays, interviews and posts, while all the time trying to deal with our own lives of answering texts with “lol” and facebooking that we “like” something. Now we can snapchat a pic because even though most texts contains less than 10 words, a picture can tell a thousand….

Is the obsession with everyday events eventually going to cause us to blow a fuse? Will the relentless tweets and texts cause us to look desperately for isolation? Will the constant stream of information dull us towards the important issues? Has it already?

Las Vegas vs Dubai

Really this post is more about Dave Hickey's "A home in the neon" vs "Fear, sand and money in Dubai" by Mike Davies. Let me just say that this was like comparing a wonderful hot toddy made with the best Irish whiskey and sweet honey - warming, comforting and enjoyable, to - well, to a shot of whatever Russian knock-off vodka your local has stocked up on. Yes "Fear, sand and money in Dubai" is the bargain booze I speak of: alcoholic - TICK, consumable - TICK (at times), Guaranteed to get you pissed - TICK. It is cold, boring and uninterestingly informative.

Dave Hickey's writing is unapologetic. He gives himself over to the reader, telling us his emotions, his opinions, his doubts without fear of judgement. Honestly after reading this piece I feel like I know him as an old friend you might bump into in the pub. Someone you can have a chat to with no hidden agendas, no underlining meanings. He is telling a story, his story, unlike Mike Davies who is simply giving us facts. In fact he doesn't tell us much about himself at all. We learn nothing of the man, he is nothing other than facts and figures. Indeed if I were to try and imagine him as a person I find myself picturing something between an accountant and Simon Cowell and then I think to myself, why bother? I imagine I would either kill myself or IT (I've always been more homicidal than suicidal) long before I would have to listen to it speak ....... then again I was forced to read his "Fear, sand and money in Dubai", perhaps I have more self-control than previously stated!

Anyway, back to the task at hand, Davies' piece at least gets slightly interesting when he lists the problems, particularly in inhumane treatment of the workers in the construction industry, but really we already knew that! Or at least had a rough idea about it, not to mention that I still don't really care. Don't get me wrong, it’s shocking. We should care and it should stop. But it reminds me of a news report which aims to shock and shake you into action but fails to do so. Facts and figures never do. I wonder if Davies even bothered to interview or meet any of these workers he has wrote about, because quite frankly he writes about them as if they are non-human objects. To him they are faceless and so they are faceless to us. Hickey's writing is so enjoyable simple for me because he describes his characters, including himself, as people and that is exactly what they are.... they are people to us.

Alain Badiou - This Crisis Is the Spectacle: Where Is the Real?

Honestly this piece was hard for me to read, other than Badiou’s wonderful use of a good simile - which my secondary school English teacher would have loved him for, I just wasn't that interested! I had to read it several times just to understand it. How many times do we need to hear about our "crisis" and the (here comes it first metaphor of the night) masked villains who drove us to destruction? Honestly right now I find myself numb to the whole thing, at one time I was furious, sad and even distraught, but come on!! Can you blame me, as "FINANCIAL CRISIS", "GLOBAL WARMING" and simply "WE'RE FUCKED" is repeatedly shouted at us like a never-ending, relentless broken record?

When did I stop caring? Honestly I don't even care about not caring. I like to think of myself as being informed, capable of taught and action, as not being one of "those who are watching the show" as Badiou puts it. And I hope I can reignite my (for lack of a better word) interest in well…. us, as a species, in our world and in our future. But right now please just shut up, pour a pint, put on a catchy tune and dance.

P.S. - Please don’t associate me mentioning alcohol in my second blog with the fact that I am Irish. Irish people drinking alcohol is a stereotype and an unfair one to many Irish people, as such I don’t want to be labelled as one ……. Even though I am lol.

Jonathan Meades - Zaha Hadid Interview

Okay here I go with my first blog, hopefully at least 50% of this will make sense, if it doesn't ....oh well!! First of all, let me clear up the title of this post because this interview was less about what Zaha Hadid said and was more about Meades’ interpretation about who she is. Meades isn't exactly sugar coating his responses to Hadid's more vague answers. His tone through the piece is constantly critical and at times almost insulting. However there is also an admiration if not for her, for her creativeness and her knowledge. He mocks her by saying that "I rather suspect that Zaha has the ancient, habitual, superstitious fear that to discover how her processes work would be to jeopardise them". Her fear has no real merits, no scientific basics but his tone suggests to me that he believes that her "processes" are real, her creativity and talent is tangible, her works are not mere flukes.

Some people have even questioned: what qualifies him (or any other person for that matter) to comment on an architect’s work? I believe that the answer is that anyone has that qualification. Sure we are artists, we create, sculpt and shape spaces and skylines, but our work affects others. We design not for ourselves but for the client and end user, and perhaps we should also add to that list, the passer-by. Architecture is art with rules, our creativity must always co-exist with functionality. While Zaha may pride herself on creating wonderfully chaotic and disturbing forms, the truth is if she had not added function, she would still be sitting behind her desk, sketching away and spending daddy’s money without any of her buildings being constructed.